


An Open Gate, A Flawless Sky

by anneapocalypse



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: And YOU get a wife and YOU get a wife, Background Relationships, F/F, Happy Ending, Memories, Reunions, Survivor Guilt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-19
Updated: 2017-12-19
Packaged: 2019-02-17 05:47:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,938
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13070385
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anneapocalypse/pseuds/anneapocalypse
Summary: A few years in the future, Carolina meets a more friendly face from her past.





	An Open Gate, A Flawless Sky

**Author's Note:**

> A lot of this is [RedTeamShark](https://archiveofourown.org/users/redteamshark)'s fault. ;) I wrote most of the first draft of this months ago after a conversation we had about what it would be like if Carolina and Ohio met someday, and ended up putting it aside because something was still missing. As it turns out, season 15 gave me some relevant new material to work with, and I decided I’d finish this up for the end of the year. 
> 
> Some [setting inspiration](http://thelastdiadoch.tumblr.com/post/123742149552/144-year-old-wisteria-in-japan-with-branches). Kimball facecanon comes from [misses-unicorn.](http://misses-unicorn.tumblr.com/post/95942138964/i-just-want-kimball-to-kick-felix-into-that) Kage is pronounced _Kah-gay_.
> 
> Many thanks to [tuckerfuckingdidit](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tuckerfuckingdidit) for beta reading, and especially for helping me hammer out the ending.
> 
> Both tagged pairings are main pairings. Background mention of Wash/Tucker.

_I still search—Judith, I can't stop searching—for signs_  
_we made it, you, me and the others, signs I see_  
_in the smallest things: an open gate, a flawless sky,_  
_a leaf autumn carelessly burns._

-Laure-Anne Bosselaar

 

The planet is really bright in the sky, mottled white and blue-green and taking up a lot of the view, though you can still see the dark around it, and if you look far enough from its bright rim, some stars. Carolina hasn’t felt so light in years, literally—the moon Kage, though larger than Luna, is still a lot smaller than Chorus, its gravity gentler. The air’s crisp and cool on her skin.

Strings of colored lights line every building, inside and out, and every street, and the city square. To an Earther, it feels festive, even though it isn’t—just a way of life on a tidally-locked moon whose inner hemisphere gets direct sunlight at sporadic intervals not corresponding to 24-hour days and nights. Tonight, Kage sits directly between Terasa and her blue giant sun. While Kage eclipses a tiny circle of shadow over Terasa’s equator, the light the gas giant reflects bathes the dark side of the moon in cool blue light.

It’s a long time since Carolina has seen Vanessa laugh this much. Her hand doesn’t leave Carolina’s, and she keeps leaning in close, the spiked-up blue tips of her hair tickling Carolina’s forehead. She’s had a drink or two. Carolina hasn’t picked up the name for the local spirit but it’s good stuff, strong with a bright floral burn.

The scent of flowers is everywhere. In the city square, Terasa’s light filters through a canopy of blossoms supported by thin metal trellises. Something like wisteria, probably, some variant many times modified from its ancestor on Earth. The floral canopy spreads out in a circle from the center, where three twisting trunks of vine intertwine. Three colors of blossoms blending into one another: pink, violet, and blue. Stone walkways spoke out from the center of the flower pavilion, widening wedges of cultivated green between them. The crowds must go for at least a half kilometer in every direction—Carolina can’t see the end of them. Kage’s regular eclipses make for a strong tourist draw at intervals throughout the year, but it’s this, the blossom festival, that draws such a heavy crowd.

She should bring the others out here sometime. They’d all love this. Only downside to having such a big family is what a production it is to take everyone on vacation together. Another time. They needed a little space to themselves, this trip—Vanessa especially, having completed her first term as Chorus’s President and having chosen not to run for a second, is more than ready for some time offworld.

Carolina smiles to herself and leans into Vanessa, feels the bright burn of the alcohol in her head and the warmth of Vanessa’s cheek against her own. There are cracks and pops of fireworks somewhere in the distance, scattering colorful bursts of light against the dark sky, and she feels Vanessa tense. Even years after the war, that instinct doesn’t go away. Carolina doesn’t say anything, only rubs Vanessa’s back, palm slowly up and down her spine.

She feels Vanessa’s lips brush her cheek and turns to her for a kiss, full on the lips, and soft. Even a kiss feels lighter out here.

“I love you,” Vanessa says softly, just barely audible over the festival din and Carolina grins, a grin that threatens to split her face, downs the rest of her drink and sets the cup away somewhere so she can wrap both arms around her beautiful, beautiful, slightly tipsy wife.

“Hey,” she says, looking deep into Vanessa’s liquid brown eyes, bottomless with wonder and joy. “I love you too.”

 

Something keeps catching her eye about the two women across the way, hand in hand and laughing under the fireworks and the friendly roar of the crowd. Just one of the women, actually. Pretty, round face, dark-complected, but it’s the color of her hair that keeps catching Carolina’s eye—black where it’s braided up to the crown of her head in sleek tapered rows, giving way to a puff of bright pink curls atop her head.

It doesn’t make sense, that she’d know anyone out here, but all the same the woman keeps drawing her eye. Not bubblegum pink like Donut but a deeper, more fuschia pink. Something about that.

“Mal,” Vanessa says, arm around her waist. “What’s up.”

“Oh my god,” Carolina says out loud, “I know her.”

 

She takes off into the crowd, barely thinking—it’s too easy, like in a dream, footsteps light on the stone in the low G and it’s only when she gets close, and the two heads turn her way, that she has a sudden sinking feeling in her stomach that oh god, what if she didn’t _want_ to be recognized, what if she—

The pink-haired woman’s dark eyes go wide. “A-Agent Carolina? Oh my god, is it really you?”

Carolina stops, and realizes she had no plan for this moment. None at all. She isn’t even one hundred percent sure she has the designation right, it’s been so long—

“Ohio,” she says tentatively, as Vanessa catches up to her side, looking on with a curiosity mirrored in the face of the pink-haired woman’s partner. “It was... Ohio, right?”

“You _remembered!”_ Ohio says, almost reverently, and the guilt catches up to Carolina right about then, slams into her chest like a truck. Ohio. Delta squad. Hung around with Idaho and—that one she can never remember.

Don’t know her real name at all.

“How—how are you?” she says weakly, and oh god, she should’ve thought before she ran headlong into this, she’s so _stupid—_

“I’m good!” Ohio says quickly, “I’m good. This is my wife, Sherry,” she adds with obvious pride, gesturing to the woman at her side, shorter and stockier with pale freckled skin and close-cropped brown hair. “We met on—well, heh, that’s a long story. Which, uh, you probably don’t have time for,” and Carolina doesn’t have time to protest before Sherry is extending a hand, which she shakes instinctively. “Sherry, this is _Agent Carolina,_ she was the _top squad leader_ in Freelancer—”

“Oh god, it’s not ‘Agent’ anymore,” Carolina clarifies, feeling awkward, and then worrying that it came out too sharp, she adds quickly, “I mean, I haven’t been a Freelancer for a long time. You can just call me—” and there it is, always, the slight hiccup in her brain when she’s about to tell somebody her real name, though it’s gotten easier over the years, “Mallory. Or Mal.”

“Mallory,” Ohio says, still sounding a little awestruck. “Think I can handle that. I’m Vera, by the way, I don’t know if you ever—I mean—”

“I didn’t,” Carolina says quickly, a little too quickly maybe, and she adds hastily, “Vera—thank you, ah—this is Vanessa,” she adds, slipping an arm around her, steadied by her closeness, “my wife.” That feels better. The words still roll deliciously off her lips, feeling a little like a dream, but one from which she hasn’t had to wake up, yet. Vanessa smiles, happiness radiating from her face.

“Nice to meet you!” Ohio says brightly, taking the hand Vanessa extends.

“Likewise.” Vanessa smiles. God, the ease with which she smiles, shakes hands, greets total strangers. Carolina knew her first as the general of a rebel army, but it was only after the war was good and over and Chorus on its way to a halting renewal that she understood Kimball’s real gift. Not combat, not tactics, but _people_.

Just the sound of her voice soothes away the panic over what to say next.

“Sounds like you two might like to catch up,” Sherry says, her eyes moving shrewdly between Carolina and Vera, whose eyes widen slightly.

“Oh, I-I wouldn’t want to _keep_ you—I mean, you don’t have to—”

“I’d like to,” Carolina says, “really.” Vanessa gives her a subtle squeeze around the waist and she soldiers on, emboldened, “You can tell me that story. Of how you met.”

 

They wander outward under the flower canopy, looking for a place to sit. Vera picks up a drink from one of the stands along the way, something blue-tinted in a clear cup. She sips it, makes a face, giggles and takes another.

Sherry and Vanessa fall behind them during the walk. Carolina hears Vanessa say something about the local flora, hears Sherry laugh and respond. She shakes her head, hiding a smile. Flowers. Vanessa can find a way to connect with anyone.

Wish she was any good at that. It’s not… as hard as it used to be. But she still finds herself at a loss for what to say to the woman beside her.

“So,” she says at last, “tell me how you met your wife.”

Vera looks a bit more serious suddenly. Carolina’s just starting to wonder if _it’s a long story_ was code for _None of your business_ when Vera speaks at last.

“Well,” she says. “You remember when we—well, you probably don’t, but—we went on that mission? Me and Idaho and Iowa?” Iowa, Iowa, that’s the one she could never remember. Like the seventh dwarf.

“Wait,” Carolina says. “What mission was that?”

Vera shoots Carolina a sidelong glance. “The one we didn’t come back from.”

Carolina goes silent for a beat or two. Because, no. She doesn’t remember that. At all.

“They deployed you?” she says at last, and then, realizing how it sounds, adds quickly, “That’s… not the story we heard.”

It’s another beat before Vera answers. “I always wondered what they said happened to us.”

“They never said, officially. Rumor was you guys dropped out.”

Vera snorts. “Well, I guess that’s technically true. Wasn’t by choice, though.”

They’ve found their way to a wedge of lawn with some picnic tables, and Carolina slides into a seat. Vera takes the spot opposite her while Vanessa and Sherry settle in at the other end, thoroughly engaged in a conversation that seems to somehow have moved from botanicals to alien archaeology. Carolina shakes her head fondly.

“We thought it was a real mission,” Vera continues, a trace of wistfulness in her voice that makes Carolina look up and pay attention. “Would’ve been our first. Instead they dumped us on a dead planet with no objective and left us.”

The words land like a punch to the stomach, and for a moment “Oh” is the only thing Carolina can manage. There it is, her old guilt, the weight descending on her chest again. Even now, so many years later, when she’s stopped wearing Connie’s tags everywhere she goes, she still feels it sometimes—that invisible albatross around her neck. _You didn’t know. You didn’t look. You didn’t care._

She wonders if it would be stupid to apologize. It’s something she’s talked through a lot in therapy—how blaming yourself for everything that happened is easier, actually, than having to sort through and separate what you did from what you had no control over. Carolina still finds that line blurry sometimes. If she wasn’t accountable for the lower squads in any real sense, but she also didn’t really think very much about them as people or care what happened to them, is she still _responsible?_ What if she’d done something different? How to define regret from this distant vantage when she can finally, at long last, feel some compassion for the person she was—when she’s not sure she could have been anyone else.

She says it anyway: “I’m sorry.”

“Jeez,” Vera says immediately, “I mean, it wasn’t _your_ fault!” She _laughs_ , which feels very surreal when Carolina half wants to be punched in the face, because even if the person she was back then couldn’t have been the person she is now, it doesn’t mean they don’t both deserve it. “I didn’t even think you knew who we were.”

“I didn’t,” Carolina confesses before she can shut herself up. “Not really.”

Vera takes a swallow of her drink, tilts her head and regards Carolina thoughtfully, unoffended. “You remembered my codename.”

She did. Carolina would probably remember most codenames, if pressed. She scoped out every recruit during training and kept notes on them. Not like, mental notes. Actual notes. Thinking ahead, she told herself. When she made squad leader (and she would) she’d need to know her team. Wasn’t a lie. Wasn’t the whole truth. She also noted anybody who might rival her for that spot. The whole of Delta Squad had been quickly filed under _no competition_. Ohio, Carolina remembers specifically because she noted her as: _Good shot, but chokes under pressure. Liability in the field._

That wasn’t cruel, it was just the truth, and it’s not what makes her chest constrict with guilt, so much as the fact that she’d also filed them under _not friend material_. _Friend material_ was a category reserved for people like Wash, Connie, South, York. Good enough to be interesting, but not _too_ good.

Not good enough to pose a threat.

After a long pause, she says, “I’m still sorry.”

Vera laughs, a bit ruefully. “It’s okay. Honestly. I mean, I was real bitter about it for a long time—not about _you_ , just about the whole thing—but like, if it hadn’t happened, I never would’ve met Sherry.” She casts a fond look in the direction of her wife, who’s still talking with Vanessa—Carolina catches a quick snatch of conversation, something about “Five things you _don’t_ want to find at an alien dig site!” followed by something she doesn’t catch, and uproarious laughter. “Sometimes I do wonder what would’ve happened, you know? Like where would I be right now if I’d been a better Freelancer.” She shrugs. “I can’t really imagine wanting things to be different now, but...”

“God, no.” Carolina shakes her head emphatically. “You dodged a fucking bullet, seriously.” She looks up, meets Vera’s eyes. “I’m—really glad you made it.” She hesitates, because maybe it’s not the time or the place for painful truths, but says anyway, “Most of my squad didn’t.”

Vera’s eyes widen. “You mean like—”

“Yeah.”

“Oh my god,” Vera says, almost helplessly, like _she_ doesn’t know what to say, this time. “I-I’m sorry. I mean, I heard that the program was disbanded and all, but...”

Carolina nods. “Yeah. Things went pretty bad, at the end.” And after, she thinks. It’s been years and she’ll never, ever forget the suffocating terror of Temple’s basement surrounded by the bodies of old Betas and Gammas frozen in their final postures of defense, betrayal, shock. Vera doesn’t need to know that, ever, doesn’t need to comprehend that horror. Mark Temple is serving a life sentence without parole and it’s been a good few years, actually, since anyone tried to kill her or Wash. They’re safe now. Vera’s safe. “I’m glad you and your squad got out when you did.”

Vera snorts. “They dumped us in the snow and left us for dead. But yeah… it turned out okay, in the end. We found things to keep us going.”

“Where were you, anyway?” Carolina asks, and wonders if that’s too much.

But Vera answers easily. “Charybdis IX.”

“Charybdis—wasn’t that glassed before—”

“Yep,” says Vera.

“Damn,” is about all Carolina can manage. Funny thing. Spent years coming to terms with all the things her father did. The equipment theft, the orbital bombing of a civilian center. Everything with Alpha. What Tex really was. What the fragments did to Maine, to Wash, to her. And the smaller things, too—the tone of his voice, the self-satisfied smirk, the pleasure she can see he took, in hindsight, in watching her break herself against the obstacles he placed before her again and again, always keeping the finish line just out of reach.

At least a quarter of their original ranks “washed out” in training incidents and equipment failures. And god knows how many “simulation” soldiers met a fate like that of Hollis Biff. Shouldn’t be a shock, maybe, to find out the old man washed out a few Deltas by dumping them in some frozen hellhole.

Still. It was one thing she didn’t know.

“How did you get out?” she asks, dragging herself away from that train of thought.

“Radio,” Vera says. “We had to find ways to boost the signal from the base towers, and it took a while, but yeah.” She smiles again, at a memory not so bitter. “Idaho did it. Managed to flag us down a ride.”

“You all made it?”

“All three of us, yeah. And Sherry’s team too, that’s—well, that’s a whole other story. We’re all living out on Asphodel now. Ezra—that’s Idaho—just finished his degree, actually.” She grins. “Electrical engineering.”

“I’m glad,” Carolina says, and she can feel her voice tightening, despite her best efforts. “I’m really glad.”

Vera nods, looking somber. “What all happened with Freelancer? I mean, if you don’t mind me asking…”

“I don’t, it’s just… a long story.” Carolina bottoms up on her drink, the taste of flowers burning in her throat. “More than one story. More than one drink’s worth of story.”

“Who else made it?” Vera asks quietly. “Besides you.”

And in that Carolina hears so much. So many unspoken questions, but most of all, _Who didn’t?_ She remembers, vaguely, that Wash hung out with some Deltas and Gammas, when he was on Beta Squad. Connie too, before they got called up. They were friends, maybe. Silently, she’s thankful for the small mercy of the question, that Vera doesn’t ask who didn’t make it, and how.

She says, “Wash made it.”

“Wash.” Vera speaks the name, and Carolina feels, unspoken, all the other names they’re both thinking. All the ones that didn’t make it. “He was a good guy. I’m glad he made it out. Are you still in touch?”

“Yeah, we’re... neighbors, actually, out on Chorus—”

Vera’s eyes widen in recognition. “Oh, _Chorus!_ So wait, you were involved with all that? With those Reds and Blues, from the old training bases?”

“That’s them,” Carolina says, with affection.

Vera snaps her fingers. “I _knew_ it! I saw you all on the news, a few years back, but they never said your name, or Wash’s, and I wasn’t sure… Wow. That must have been something.”

“It sure was something,” Carolina says wryly, casting a fond look at Vanessa, still chatting with Sherry. “Rough history out there, but things are getting better. Wash’s married, too. Settled down. Working as hard as ever.” She slides her COM pad out of her pocket and unlocks it with a swipe of her thumb, flips through her photos until she finds one she snapped of Wash caught off-guard halfway to a smile by Tucker throwing his arms around his shoulders from behind, grinning ear-to-ear. “There they are. Him and his husband, Lavernius.” She can hardly suppress a grin. “Never seen two people so stupidly in love.”

“Aw.” Vera grins. “That’s so nice. I’m glad.”

 

The four of them hang out awhile longer, chat about lighter things, and Carolina neither knows how nor totally wants to end the conversation even as the time on her COM pad creeps later and later. Vanessa, as usual, rescues her, broaching the question Carolina felt too awkward to ask. “Are you two around for the rest of the festival? We could meet up again, have dinner maybe?”

Vera stammers, sounding a lot the way Carolina feels, “Oh gosh, I mean, don’t feel _obligated_ to—”

“Dinner sounds great,” Sherry cuts in, sliding down the bench to bump Vera’s hip with her own and Carolina can just see, over the table, her hand finding Vera’s to give it a squeeze.

It’s the signal they all need to get up from their table, murmuring about the time and getting some sleep, exchanging COMs, but without warning, Vera throws her arms around Carolina. She stiffens slightly in pure shock, then self-consciously tries to unstiffen herself and hug back.

“It was so good to see you,” Vera says earnestly.

“Yeah,” Carolina says, relaxing a little. “You too. Really. If ah, you and Sherry ever come out our way, you should look us up, I bet Wash’d like to see you too.” Vera breaks the hug at last and Carolina takes half a step back, half-relieved, half-sorry. She cracks a smile. “He’s gonna flip when I tell him.”

 

By the time they catch a cab, Carolina’s about used up all of her words and she goes quiet on the ride back to the hotel. Vanessa doesn’t push her, knows by now it’s a silence Carolina can’t help—old memories and old feelings turned over, resurfaced in living color.

It’s the early hours of morning by now, though the sky looks about the same as before, the whole city bathed in cool blue light. The sheer size of Terasa and the length of her rotation means the eclipse phase will carry on for several more days.

Back at the room, door closed and curtains drawn, Carolina slips out of her jeans and pulls her bra off from under her tank top, dropping them carelessly over the desk chair. She turns away from her reflection in the wide mirror on the wall as she rakes a hand through her hair, and feels Vanessa’s hand on the small of her back.

“Are you okay?” Vanessa says simply. She’s learned, over the years, that it’s an easier question than _How are you doing_ , which at times still makes Carolina freeze, too-open ended to answer. _Are you okay._ Yes, no, maybe, I don’t know, I will be. Simpler.

“I’m okay,” she says. True. “I’m glad. It’s just. A lot.”

“I’m sure,” says Vanessa.

Carolina looks up at last, meets her own eyes in the mirror. A few more lines around her eyes and her mouth than there were a few years ago, the few stands of gray in her hair covered up with fresh color last week. And Vanessa beside her, more lines in her face too, though her jet black hair has yet to silver at the temples, astonishingly, even after a full term as the first president of a united but still tumultuous Chorus. Carolina’s gaze shifts to Vanessa’s eyes, deep brown and heavy-lashed, watching her with a look as gentle and patient as her touch.

“I’m gonna text Wash before bed, okay?” she says finally. “I want to let him know.”

He’ll be glad, she thinks. Glad it’s real this time. Not like Illinois on the beach, close enough almost to touch and so horribly ripped away. She has to go back further, sometimes, remember all over again how it was coming up on Sidewinder in the snow in her Warthog, killing the engine at the point just above the U of the canyon and looking down at those bright colors running back and forth in the snow. Seeing yellow accents on cobalt blue, thinking for a moment it was a trick of the light, or just her mistake, before she heard the voice that made it true.

Vanessa cracks a smile. “Good. Take your time. I’ll be here.”

Carolina retrieves pajama pants from her bag and settles cross-legged on the bed, tugs the blankets over her knees as she unlocks her COM pad. Pulls up Wash from her recent conversations with a swipe of her thumb, and hovers for a moment over the touchscreen keys, putting the words together.

_you’ll never guess who i saw today._

**Author's Note:**

> For the purposes of this fic I'm assuming _someone_ told Carolina what Temple's grievance was.
> 
> Thank you for reading! Comments and concrit are welcome.


End file.
